Читать книгу Trail and Fell Running in the Lake District. 40 runs in the National Park including classic routes онлайн

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Weather and forecasts

The presence of the mountains has a far greater influence on the weather than many lowland runners may be used to. Despite the relatively lowly height of the fell tops, the region is a maritime climate, and the rapid uplift of humid air to nearly 1km above sea level is often enough to condense the air mass and cause rain. The hamlet of Seathwaite in the Borrowdale valley has the dubious accolade of being the wettest inhabited place in the UK, with an average of 3552mm of rain per year!

Perfect weather for a run on Wetherlam (Route 11)

Many postcards sold in the local shops make joking reference to the amount of rain that falls in the Lake District, and there are even Cumbrian dialect words for various types of rain, such as ‘mizzlin’ (drizzle) and ‘yal watter’ (heavy rain) – in much the same way as Eskimos have tens of words for different snow types. The floods of December 2015 did nothing to break the national perception that it rains, a lot, in Cumbria.

The first thing a runner should do each day is check the weather forecast (www.mwis.org.uk/english-welsh-forecast/LD or www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/mountain-forecasts/lake-district) to identify any highlighted risks such as thunder storms or a low freezing level that could result in ice on some of the fells. As ever, the runner needs to adapt their choice of route, as well as the equipment they plan to carry, to the prevailing weather. In the winter months the fell top assessors report from the summit of Helvellyn (www.lakedistrictweatherline.co.uk) on conditions underfoot and the weather.